Chapter 2 – The Sky of Travel

“Little master. Lunch is ready~”

Lucia, the adventurer we’d hired as part of our escort, came to call us from inside the carriage.

At first, they’d arranged for us to eat separately with different menus, but when I asked if preparing separate meals each time wasn’t a bother, they said it was because I was the son of a count. So I told them it was inefficient and that the same would be fine, which is how we ended up like this.

Apparently, they hadn’t expected a noble to say something like that.

If anything, there seem to be more people like the idiots in my family, in which case eating separately would be normal, I suppose. In many ways.

“Lucia-san. I’d prefer if you stopped calling me ‘little master’.”

“But you see, you are the son of a count…”

“I’m not that important.”

Truth be told, in that house, I’m practically an outcast.

Right now, I’m indeed wearing a cravat and other somewhat formal attire from Westcourt… so I might look somewhat noble-like, but my clothes are just what I was given to wear. As for what’s inside, I’m far from being a noble.

Since this journey’s escort is technically a request from the count’s family, I intend to behave appropriately, but once we reach the boundary city, I want to quickly get proper magician-like equipment. I’ve had to compromise with only being able to get cheap magic staves, among other things.

Well, regardless of what comes later, for now it’s lunch. The scenery visible from these gentle hills is beautiful, so we decided to have our meal here.

Guided by Lucia, we ended up having lunch under the open sky with the adventurers serving as our escort. The weather was nice and peaceful.

Today’s meal consisted of vegetable soup seasoned with salt, black bread, and dried meat.

Best of all, there’s no one nitpicking about table manners or anything. The air is fresh, the food is tasty. It’s wonderfully liberating.

The adventurers serving as our escort are an adventurer party called Forestbird, who are quite well-known in Gartner County and its vicinity. Their well-balanced composition includes two warriors as vanguard—Robin and Fitz; Monica, who is skilled with knives and bows; and Lucia, who can handle both healing and attack magic. The gender ratio is exactly half and half too.

Lucia has a somewhat gentle and laid-back atmosphere, and the others seem like good people as well. They don’t give off much of an impression of adventurers specializing in rough work, but they’re definitely skilled.

“By the way, little master, why are you heading to Termwills?”

asked Robin, who had tea-colored hair and freckles. You too?

“I told you to stop with the ‘little master.’ It doesn’t suit me.”

“My apologies.”

“Fufufu.”

I wish they’d all stop with those warm smiles that say “how endearing, a child trying to act grown-up.”

It’s a matter of the inner person’s feelings, not that kind of thing.

“…Just Theodore is fine.”

Though some people call me Theo for short.

“You’re going to live there, right?”

“Are you aiming to strike it rich after all?”

Monica and Fitz asked things like that.

“Nah, it’s just that Termwills seems interesting. Plus, I hate my family home.”

“I see…”

“Ah—”

When I answered like that, they nodded as if convinced. And after being convinced, they each seemed to be strangely lost in thought.

They’re adventurers, after all. People have their own reasons for choosing to become adventurers, so maybe they have experiences they can relate to or thoughts about it. At any rate, I find it very preferable that they don’t show any signs of looking down on me as a noble’s whim or foolishness.

I was the one who chose Forestbird as travel companions. There were several adventurer groups who said they wanted to take the request, but I picked them from among them. I asked their motivation for accepting the request and liked their response.

They said, “Getting paid to go to Termwills? That’s awesome!” It was a very adventurer-like reason.

It seems they plan to delve into the labyrinth over there after escorting us to our destination.

After all, I had anticipated the possibility that if I hired an escort, it might be someone under Kathryn’s influence, an assassin. Forestbird’s motivation might seem the most frivolous, but precisely because of that, I felt it was safer and I could relate to it.

The feelings I hold towards Termwills might be similar to what adventurers feel towards the boundary city. In that we both have attachments to that city and harbor dreams and hopes for it, we’re somewhat alike.

As for me, I didn’t think much of my life back in Japan either.

Perhaps because society was so mature. It was hard to live, and hard to die… that sense of stagnation, honestly thinking back on it now, is suffocating.

I’m tired of living with my shoulders hunched up like I did before. I can’t stand the thought of having everything taken away unreasonably and abruptly like what happened to my previous self at the end. I will live by my own power, without deference to anyone.

The journey is relatively smooth. Partly because we have an escort, weaker monsters don’t come near.

I left the task of keeping watch of our surroundings to Forestbird and decided to spend the travel time practicing and experimenting with magic to my heart’s content.

That said, for me, as long as I can handle the Magical Power Circulation skill, which is the core of being a Battle Mage, the rest can be somewhat haphazard.

I don’t know how other magicians in this world do it, but at least in my case, I can handle magic with the same feeling as in BFO, and the way to circulate power is, literally, something my senses remember.

“Theodore-sama.”

While I was playing around, deploying a small magic array on my fingertip, Grace tilted her head and called out to me.

“Hm? What is it?”

“I’m not that knowledgeable about magic, but…”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve heard that Magic Circle is a very advanced technique.”

Ah… is that so? I can do normal chanting too, but that has significant drawbacks for use in combat. The biggest problem is—if you mess up the chant, you fumble.

On the other hand, chantless magic generally results in reduced power, and chantless is only practical up to about third-tier magic at best.

If you try to perform intermediate magic, around the fourth to sixth tiers, without chanting, the activation actually becomes slower.

The method of drawing a magic array with magical power to construct a magic formula was developed to overcome these various problems. It’s called Magic Circle and such, and it promises faster and more reliable completion of magic than chanting.

There is the drawback of slightly increased magical power consumption for activating magic, but the benefits outweigh that. In BFO, this was available as a skill… but it was so convenient that basically no magic class user wouldn’t acquire it. The exceptions would be players who only use magic purely for production or those who feel a sense of romance in chanting.

“…I guess people who can use it, can use it? I haven’t really struggled with it.”

“Is that so? Theodore-sama’s magical talent must be a gift from heaven, then.”

When I answered with a smile, Grace seemed happy for me as if it were her own affair.

Well, if you ask if it’s a gift, I can only say yes.

As I was floating an ambiguous smile, the carriage suddenly came to a stop.

“Th-Theodore-san! It’s terrible!”

Lucia, who had been sitting in the driver’s seat, called out to me in a flustered voice. Wondering what was wrong, I looked outside through the carriage window.

I didn’t need to ask for an explanation—the situation was clear at a glance. From the direction of the highway, deer, monkeys, wolves… lots of animals were fleeing towards us.

The fact that even Goblins and Kobolds were mixed in among them, running with desperate expressions, was quite ominous. It really is terrible. The horses, swallowed by the herd of animals, whinnied in fear but couldn’t move.

After confirming the situation, I immediately began preparing to activate the intermediate fourth-tier light magic, Life Detection. A shining magic array deployed at my feet, constructing the spell formula.

It makes the aura light possessed by living things visible to the naked eye, with different colors for rough classifications like plants, mammals, insects, reptiles, fish, etc. Basically, the stronger the glow, the more powerful the individual.

It’s useless against the undead, but well. Let’s see what appears.

…A purple light. Insect-type monsters. Each time the purple light pounced on the animal silhouettes, the red glows disappeared. The large numbers overlapped, making individual outlines hard to distinguish, but—they looked like ants about the size of a large dog.

A swarm of Killer Ants, huh? They have a property of sometimes, for some reason, appearing in large numbers and causing significant damage. They’re definitely heading this way. I’d really rather not deal with a train of wild animals, please.

“…That’s a swarm of Killer Ants.”

“Ah, ants!? A swarm!?”

“L-Let’s run too!”

Lucia is panicking, and everyone else seems on edge too. Even if we say run, in this situation, it’s inevitable we’d be caught up to.

At any rate, whatever we do, I want Grace to be able to protect herself.

“Grace. The ring.”

“Yes. Theodore-sama.”

Biting my lip until it bled, I pressed my lips to the ring Grace offered.

“—Restriction release.”